page_title: Cold War (1947–1953)
section_title: Korean War
hierarchical_section_title: Cold War (1947–1953) / Korean War
caption_attribution_description: President Harry S. Truman is shown at his desk at the White House signing a proclamation declaring a national emergency.
context_page_description: The Cold War (1947–1953) is the period within the Cold War from the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953. The Cold War emerged in Europe a few years after the successful US–USSR–UK coalition won World War II in Europe, and extended to 1989–91. In 1947, Bernard Baruch, the multimillionaire financier and adviser to presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman, coined the term “Cold War” to describe the increasingly chilly relations between two World War II Allies: the United States and the Soviet Union.
  Some conflicts between the West and the USSR appeared earlier. In 1945–46 the US and UK strongly protested Soviet political takeover efforts in Eastern Europe and Iran, while the hunt for Soviet spies made the tensions more visible. However historians emphasize the decisive break between the US–UK and the USSR came in 1947–48 over such issues as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Blockade, followed by the formation of NATO in 1949.The Cold War took place worldwide, but it had a partially different timing outside Europe.
context_section_description: In early 1950, the United States made its first commitment to form a peace treaty with Japan that would guarantee long-term U.S. military bases. Some observers (including George Kennan) believed that the Japanese treaty led Stalin to approve a plan to invade U.S.-supported South Korea on June 25, 1950. Korea had been divided at the end of World War II along the 38th parallel into Soviet and U.S. occupation zones, in which a communist government was installed in the North by the Soviets, and an elected government in the South came to power after UN-supervised elections in 1948.
  In June 1950, Kim Il-sung's North Korean People's Army invaded South Korea.  Fearing that communist Korea under a Kim Il Sung dictatorship could threaten Japan  and foster other communist movements in Asia, Truman committed U.S. forces and obtained help from the United Nations to counter the North Korean invasion. The Soviets boycotted UN Security Council meetings while protesting the Council's failure to seat the People's Republic of China and, thus, did not veto the Council's approval of UN action to oppose the North Korean invasion. A joint UN force of personnel from South Korea, the United States, Britain, Turkey, Canada, Australia, France, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand and other countries joined to stop the invasion.  After a Chinese invasion to assist the North Koreans, fighting stabilized along the 38th parallel, which had separated the Koreas. Truman faced a hostile China, a Sino-Soviet partnership, and a defense budget that had quadrupled in eighteen months.
  The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in July 1953 after the death of Stalin, who had been insisting that the North Koreans continue fighting.  In North Korea, Kim Il-sung created a highly centralized and brutal dictatorship, according himself unlimited power and generating a formidable cult of personality.
caption: President Truman signing a proclamation declaring a national emergency that initiates U.S. involvement in the Korean War.
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